My First Andover/Exeter Weekend

My first Andover/Exeter weekend of my Andover career was filled with excitement, spirit, and nerve-racking intensity. The weekend kicked off on Thursday with a sea of red and everywhere I went there were calculators, suspenders, over-sized glasses, inhalers, and a communal love of the JV2 Mathlete team. Exeter Geek Day, a day of tasteful teasing, was a great opportunity to come together as a class and have a bit of spontaneous fun. One of the more surprising parts of the day is how much effort students really put in to perfecting their outfits. Talking to a few upper-class students, I learned that many students go out of their way during the summer to shop around for items just for Exeter Geek Day. Our school Blue Key Heads, who are spirited leaders exclusively selected from the senior class, make it a point during the day to act as role models of enthusiasm. The Blue Key Heads spent months devoting their time to perfecting their decimals of pi, their frequent unattractive grimaces, and brushing up on the library's dewey decimal system, all of which resulted in a fantastic display of awkwardness.

On Friday, we celebrated "True Blue Day" in which everyone in the school was decked out in the school's colors and apparel. One image that really caught my eye was walking into UnCommons, our dining hall, and seeing a sea of sheer pride. Spirit was clear down to every detail, including some awesome face paint. All of the Big Blue pride throughout the day was one big pump-up to the pep rally later that night. Having never been to such a large pep rally, I was at first considerably overwhelmed but then very excited to be part of something so spirited. Each varsity level fall sports team prepared a short performance which allowed everyone to get excited for the games of the weekend. Blue Key Heads performed a series of sketches titled "Top 5 Reasons to go to Exeter" to break up each performance and remind everyone why Andover will always 'shred the red.'

Horns, drums, and shouting. I woke up Saturday morning to chanting voices outside of my dorm, voices of the Blue Key Heads insuring nobody would sleep through their alarm and miss out on games throughout the day. After dressing up in blue and grabbing a quick brunch at UnCommons, I headed over to the girl's varsity field hockey game to cheer on big blue and a few of my fellow dorm-mates on the team. While PA fought hard throughout the game, the team suffered a tragic loss in overtime. After field hockey, a few friends and I jetted over to Borden Gym to watch the undefeated girl's varsity volleyball team kick some major Exeter butt. Andover won, 3 matches to 0, and had all of the stands going insane. Finally, along with nearly every other PA student, I headed over to the varsity football game. The greatest part of the evening was being able to step back and appreciate being part of a 130 year old tradition. Devastating as it is to remind myself of it, Andover, despite a great effort, lost to Exeter with a final score of 21 - 13. Despite the great loss, there was still a great sense of fidelity and pride among campus. As The Phillipian, PA's newspaper, so eloquently stated, "Even though Exeter may have won, they still had to wake up and go to Exeter on Monday."

Kate